Is the Tech Industry to Digital Addiction What the Pharmaceutical Industry Has Been to Opioid Addiction?

Opioid addiction has become so widespread in the U.S. that last August President Trump declared it to be a national emergency.

“Digital Addiction” may not be as serious as opioid addiction YET; however, the outcry and accusations made by Apple investors and former tech employees seems eerily similar to what has been reported as contributing to the current Opioid Crisis.

The drug industry used (that) money and influence to pressure top lawyers at the DEA to take a softer approach.

The bill introduced in the House by Pennsylvania Congressman Tom Marino and Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, was promoted as a way to ensure that patients had access to the pain medication they needed. Jonathan Novak, who worked in the DEA’s legal office, says what the bill really did was strip the agency of its ability to immediately freeze suspicious shipments of prescription narcotics to keep drugs off U.S. streets — what the DEA calls diversion.

As far as Digital Addiction, for those who are concerned, you now have friends in high places who are calling upon Apple and other tech companies to help fix this problem – especially in regard to children.

This is good news. However, there are still factors to consider in regard to current Digital Addiction issues and the Tech Industry:

These products have been and will likely continue to be marketed to parents and children as educational as well as recreational by Apple, other tech companies, and public educational institutions including PBS.

It has actually been reported for many years now that Silicon Valley employees have restricted how much their own kids use the same products that are being marketed to everyone else. Many send their kids to private “low tech” or “no tech” schools.

Funding for public schools includes large budgets to provide these products for students to use in and out of the classroom and at a young age. It is part of the curriculum that children use these products for hours at a time. Their homework assignments are often only accessible online.

Before the Apple investors took a stand last week, former tech employees shared their concerns and regrets. Here are 2 examples:

Roger McNamee, an early investor in Google and Facebook, has also spoken out:

One of the sad things, one of the things that makes me angry- is that executives out in the [Silicon] Valley, generally restrict their kids’ use of the products that they are encouraging everyone else use… so first thing to do is to explain to the kids, hey guys, a lot of bad stuff going on here that’s not your fault. I wish we had caught this before it become an epidemic problem.

Should Apple Be Responsible For Combatting iPhone Addiction In Kids? Two Experts Weigh In | CNBC

Still think this isn’t affecting you or your family? All Americans have all been paying for public schools to become “high tech” through tax increases. Many students are provided with free iPads.

It’s now being covered even more extensively and many people are demanding change.

Hopefully, soon, these same concerned people will also recognize and acknowledge that wireless and electromagnetic radiation from these products is also contributing to digital addiction as well as other emotional, mental, and physical health problems. There’s plenty of research about that, too. It ain’t pretty.

“Supply and Demand” is Basic Economics.

Technology can be very beneficial. Anyone who has been stuck on the side of the road and had access to a cell phone would probably agree to that.

Tech inventors and companies create and market their products as devices that we need to survive as well as to thrive. As long as we keep buying these products– they will keep making them whether we have healthy relationships with these products or not.

“Buying a brick phone is an act of self-care” – Downgrading your mobile phone can have surprising benefits for both mental health and productivity, writes Harriet Phillipshttps://www.varsity.co.uk/features/14356